Field of the Invention
The disclosed embodiments relate in general to the field of electric charging technology, such as electric vehicle charging, as well as to power grid management and, more specifically, to systems and methods for electrical charging load modeling services to optimize power grid objectives.
Description of the Related Art
Today's power grid is generally managed pursuant to a top-down approach provided by Independent System Operators, Regional Transmission Operators, and Load Service Entities such as utilities, Microgrids and other large generation facilities. As distributed, local, and renewable generation and non-generating loads proliferate across territories, markets have the ability to use these resources to contribute to the supply-demand balance inherently needed for the electrical power grid. This includes but is not limited to the battery/load states connected to electric vehicle charging stations, Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), local battery storage, water heating, and pump storage.
A typical Electric Vehicle consumes ˜10-15 KWHr of energy every day to recharge its batteries—this amount of energy is sufficient to provide ˜30-50 miles of daily driving (which is consistent with a US average commute distances). A typical recharge time to transfer that amount of energy from the AC grid to the vehicle's battery is 90 minutes. However, the amount of time available for such a recharge is generally over 23 hours during a typical 24-hour day. Moreover, there are at least two blocks of this time when a typical EV spends 8+ hours in one location. These locations are usually the home of the driver and her workplace. This difference between time available and actual time required for charging creates an opportunity to reduce the instantaneous charging power and still satisfy the driver's requirements for a full vehicle battery recharge for the next day. In other words, if one were to spread the charging power uniformly over a 16-hour period (8 hours at work+8 hours at home), a typical EV can be recharged for a day of driving at just 0.6 kW average charging power.
This ability to reduce instantaneous charging power can be utilized to modulate the instantaneous electrical power drawn by a fleet of EVs by modulating charging current for each EV via EV charging stations. Such modulation capability can then be used to provide various stabilization services to the Electrical Grid (e.g., Demand Management, Frequency Regulation, Peak Shaving, Economic Demand Response, etc.). Similar to EVs, charging of other energy storage devices, such as home energy storage batteries, such as Tesla Power Wall, may also be modulated to stabilize the Electrical Grid.
Today's technology addresses these assets using binary communication that lacks an overall understanding of the objectives of each stakeholder, including the larger power grid, connected and islanded micro-grids, substations, renewable generation farms/facilities, local premises, consumer/commercial/industrial energy customers, and the generation or storage needs of each asset. Today's equipment that provides charging services has no capability to communicate nor receive inputs to identify optimal charging needs for any reason. Nor does it collect usage pattern data from a specific user or groups of users. Nor does it address existing conditions such as climate/weather, current economic needs of each stakeholder, or environmental conditions. Examples of such objectives include grid energy balancing, revenue maximization for the operator of the grid on both the wholesale and retail levels, protection or deferment of critical infrastructure, or environmental goals such as greenhouse gas emission mitigation. As a result, the time and rate of charge required to optimize all needs is not clear or well understood due to a lack of data or the ability to process the data.
Therefore, new and improved systems and methods for incorporating disparate data streams to maximize the benefits of each component of the distributed power generation and storage are needed.